“What would you have, Jasper?”
“Be of good heart—Friends are at hand, and not a single Mingo shall cross without suffering for his boldness. Had you not better leave the rifle on the rock, and swim to us before the rascals can get afloat?”
“A true woodsman never quits his piece, while he has any powder in his horn, or a bullet in his pouch. I have not drawn a trigger this day, Eau douce, and should’n’t relish the idea of parting with them riptyles, without causing them to remember my name. A little water will not harm my legs, and I see that blackguard, Arrowhead, among the scamps, and wish to send him the wages he has so faithfully earned. You have not brought the Sarjeant’s daughter down here in a range with their bullets, I hope, Jasper!”
“She is safe, for the present at least, though all depends on our keeping the river between us and the enemy. They must know our weakness, now, and should they cross, no doubt some of their party will be left on the other side.”
“This canoeing touches your gifts rather than mine, boy, though I will handle a paddle with the best Mingo that ever struck a salmon. If they cross below the rift, why can’t we cross in the still water above, and keep playing at dodge and turn with the wolves?”
“Because, as I have said, they will leave a party on the other shore—and, then, Pathfinder, would you expose Mabel, to the rifles of the Iroquois!”
“The Sarjeant’s daughter must be saved,” returned the guide with calm energy. “You are right, Jasper, she has no gift to authorize her in offering her sweet face and tender body, to a Mingo rifle. What can be done then? They must be kept from crossing for an hour or two, if possible, when we must do our best in the darkness.”
“I agree with you, Pathfinder, if it can be effected; but are we strong enough for such a purpose?”
“The Lord is with us, boy; the Lord is with us; and it is onreasonable to suppose that one like the Sarjeant’s daughter will be altogether abandoned by Providence, in such a strait. There is not a boat between the falls and the garrison, except these two canoes, to my sartain knowledge, and I think it will go beyond red-skin gifts to cross in the face of two rifles, like these of yourn’ and mine. I will not vaunt, Jasper, but it is well known on all this frontier that Killdeer seldom fails!”
“Your skill is admitted by all, far and near, Pathfinder, but a rifle takes time to be loaded; nor are you on the land, aided by a good cover, where you can work to the advantage you are used to. If you had our canoe, might you not pass to the shore, with a dry rifle?”
“Can an eagle fly, Jasper?” returned the other laughing, in his usual manner, and looking back as he spoke. “But it would be onwise to expose yourself on the water, for them miscreants are beginning to bethink them again of powder and bullets.”
“It can be done without any such chances. Master Cap has gone up to the canoe, and will cast the branch of a tree into the river to try the current, which sets from the point above in the direction of your rock. See, there it comes already; if it float fairly, you must raise your arm, when the canoe will follow. At all events, if the boat should pass you, the eddy below will bring it up, and I can recover it.”
While Jasper was still speaking the floating branch came in sight, and quickening its progress with the increasing velocity of the current, it swept swiftly down towards the Pathfinder, who seized it as it was passing, and held it in the air, as a sign of success. Cap understood the signal, and presently the canoe was launched into the stream, with a caution and an intelligence that the habits of the mariner fitted him to observe. It floated in the same direction as the branch, and in a minute was arrested by the Pathfinder.
“This has been done with a frontier man’s judgment, Jasper,” said the guide laughing; “but you have your gifts, which incline most to the water, as mine incline to the woods. Now, let them Mingo knaves cock their rifles and get rests, for this is the last chance they are likely to have at a man without a cover.”
“Nay, shove the canoe towards the shore, quartering the current, and throw yourself into it, as it goes off,” said Jasper eagerly; “there is little use in running any risk.”
“I like to stand up face to face, with my inimies like a man, while they set me the example,” returned the Pathfinder, proudly. “I am not a red skin born, and it is more a white man’s gifts to fight openly, than to lie in ambushment.”
“And Mabel?”
“True, boy, true—the Sarjeant’s daughter must be saved; and, as you say, foolish risks only become boys. Think you, that you can catch the canoe, where you stand?”
“There can be no doubt, if you give a vigorous push.”
Pathfinder made the necessary effort, the light bark shot across the intervening space, and Jasper seized it, as it came to land. To secure the canoe, and to take proper positions in the cover, occupied the friends but a moment, when they shook hands cordially, like those who had met after a long separation.
“Now, Jasper, we shall see if a Mingo of them all dare cross the Oswego in the teeth of Killdeer. You are handier with the oar and the paddle and the sail, than with the rifle, perhaps, but you have a stout heart and a steady hand, and them are things that count, in a fight.”
“Mabel will find me between her and her enemies,” said Jasper, calmly.
“Yes, yes, the Sarjeant’s daughter must be protected. I like you, boy, on your own account, but I like you all the better that you think of one so feeble, at a moment when there is need for all our manhood. See, Jasper; three of the knaves are actually getting into the canoe! They must believe we have fled, or they would not surely ventur’ so much, directly in the very face of Killdeer!”
Sure enough, the Iroquois did appear bent on venturing across the stream, for, as the Pathfinder and his friends, now kept their persons strictly concealed, their enemies began to think that the latter had taken to flight. The course was that which most white men would have followed, but Mabel was under the care of those who were much too well skilled in forest warfare, to neglect to defend the only pass, that, in truth, now offered even a probable chance for protection.
As the Pathfinder had said, three warriors were in the canoe, two holding their rifles at a poise, kneeling in readiness to aim the deadly weapons; the other standing erect in the stern to wield the paddle. In this manner they left the shore, having had the precaution to haul the canoe, previously to entering it, so far up stream, as to get into the comparatively still water above the rift. It was apparent, at a glance, that the savage who guided the boat was skilled in the art, for the long steady sweep of his paddle sent the light bark over the glassy surface of the tranquil river, as if it were a feather floating in air.
“Shall I fire?” demanded Jasper in a whisper, trembling with eagerness to engage.
“Not yet, boy; not yet. There are but three of them, and if Master Cap, yonder, knows how to use the pop-guns he carries in his belt, we may even let them land, and then we shall recover the canoe.”
“But Mabel?—”
“No fear for the Sarjeant’s daughter. She is safe, in the hollow stump you say, with the opening judgematically hid by brambles. If what you tell me of the manner in which you concealed the trail be true, the sweet-one might lie there a month, and laugh at the Mingos.”
“We are never certain—I wish we had brought her nearer to our own cover!”
“What for, Eau douce?—To place her pretty little head and leaping heart among flying bullets. No—no—she is better where she is, because she is safer.”
“We are never certain—we thought ourselves safe, behind the bushes, and yet you saw that we were discovered.”
“And the Mingo imp paid for his cur’osity, as them knaves are about to do—”
At that instant, the sharp report of a rifle was heard, when the Indian in the stern of the canoe leaped high into the air, and fell into the water holding the paddle in his hand. A small wreath of smoke floated out from among the bushes of the eastern shore, and was soon absorbed by the atmosphere.
“That is the Sarpent hissing!” exclaimed the Pathfinder, exultingly. “A bolder or a truer heart never beat in the breast of a Delaware. I am sorry that he interfered, but he could not have known our condition—he could not have known our condition.”
The canoe no sooner lost its guide, than it floated with the stream, and was soon sucked into the rapids of the rift. Perfectly helpless, the two remaining savages gazed wildly about them, but could offer no resistance to the power of the element. It was perhaps fortunate for Chingachgook that the attention of most of the Iroquois was intently given to the situation of those in the boat, else would his escape have been to the last degree difficult, if not totally impracticable. But not a foe moved, except to conceal his person behind some cover, and every eye was riveted on the two remaining adventurers. In less time than has been necessary to record these occurrences, the canoe was whirling and tossing in the rift, while both the savages had stretched themselves in its bottom, as the only means of preserving the equilibrium. This natural expedient soon failed them, for striking a rock the light craft rolled over, and the two warriors were thrown into the river. The water is seldom deep on a rift, except in particular places where it may have worn channels, and there was little to be apprehended from drowning, though their arms were lost, and the two savages were fain to make the best of their way to the friendly shore, swimming and wading as circumstances required. The canoe itself lodged on a rock, in the centre of the stream, where, for the moment, it became useless to both parties.
“Now is our time, Pathfinder,” cried Jasper, as the two Iroquois exposed most of their persons, while wading in the shallowest part of the rapids—“The fellow up stream is mine, and you can take the lower.”
So excited had the young man become, by all the incidents of the stirring scene, that the bullet sped from his rifle as he spoke, but uselessly as it would seem, for both the fugitives tossed their arms in disdain. The Pathfinder did not fire.
“No—no—Eau douce,” he answered—“I do not seek blood without a cause, and my bullet is well leathered and carefully driven down, for the time of need. I love no Mingo, as is just, seeing how much I have consorted with the Delawares, who are their mortal and nat’ral inimies, but I pull no trigger on one of the miscreants, unless it be plain that his death will lead to some good ind. The deer never leaped, that fell by my hand wantonly. By living much alone with God in the wilderness, a man gets to feel the justice of such opinions. One life is sufficient for our present wants, and there may yet be occasion to use Killdeer in behalf of the Sarpent, who has done an untimorsome thing to let them rampant devils so plainly know that he is in their neighborhood. As I’m a wicked sinner, there is one of them prowling along the bank, this very moment, like one of the boys of the garrison skulking behind a fallen tree to get a shot at a squirrel!”
As the Pathfinder pointed with his finger, while speaking, the quick eye of Jasper soon caught the object towards which it was directed. One of the young warriors of the enemy, burning with a desire to distinguish himself, had stolen from his party towards the cover in which Chingachgook had concealed himself, and as the latter was deceived by the apparent apathy of his foes, as well as engaged in some further preparations of his own, he had evidently obtained a position where he got a sight of the Delaware. This circumstance was apparent by the arrangements the Iroquois was making to fire, for Chingachgook himself was not visible from the western side of the river. The rift was at a bend in the Oswego, and, the sweep of the eastern shore formed a curve so wide that Chingachgook was quite near to his enemies in a straight direction, though separated by several hundred feet on the land, owing to which fact, air lines brought both parties nearly equidistant from the Pathfinder and Jasper. The general width of the river being a little less than two hundred yards, such necessarily was about the distance between his two observers and the skulking Iroquois.
“The Sarpent must be thereabouts,” observed Pathfinder, who never turned his eye for an instant from the young warrior, “and yet he must be strangely off his guard to allow a Mingo devil to get his stand so near, with manifest signs of bloodshed in his heart.”
“See,” interrupted Jasper—“there is the body of the Indian, the Delaware shot! It has drifted on a rock, and the current has forced the head and face above the water.”
“Quite likely, boy; quite likely. Human natur’ is little better than a log of drift wood, when the life that was breathed into its nostrils has departed. That Iroquois will never harm any one more, but yonder skulking savage is bent on taking the scalp of my best and most tried friend—”
The Pathfinder suddenly interrupted himself, by raising his rifle, a weapon of unusual length, with admirable precision, and firing the instant it had got its level. The Iroquois, on the opposite shore, was in the act of aiming when the fatal messenger from Killdeer arrived. His rifle was discharged it is true, but it was with the muzzle in the air, while the man himself plunged into the bushes, quite evidently hurt, if not slain.
“The skulking reptyle brought it on himself,” muttered Pathfinder, sternly, as dropping the breech of his rifle, he carefully commenced re-loading it. “Chingachgook and I have consorted togither since we were boys, and have fou’t in company, on the Horican, the Mohawk, the Ontario, and all the other bloody passes between the country of the Frenchers and our own; and did the foolish knave believe that I would stand by and see my best friend cut off in an ambushment!”
“We have served the Serpent as good a turn, as he served us. Those rascals are troubled, Pathfinder, and are falling back into their covers, since they find we can reach them across the river!”
“The shot is no great matter, Jasper; no great matter. Ask any of the 60th, and they can tell you, what Killdeer can do, and has done, and that too when the bullets were flying about our heads like hail-stones. No—no—this is no great matter, and the onthoughtful vagabond drew it down on himself.”
“Is that a dog or a deer, swimming towards this shore?”
Pathfinder started, for, sure enough, an object was crossing the stream, above the rift, towards which, however, it was gradually setting by the force of the current. A second look satisfied both the observers that it was a man and an Indian, though so concealed as, at first, to render it doubtful. Some stratagem was apprehended, and the closest attention was given to the movements of the stranger.
“He is pushing something before him, as he swims, and his head resembles a drifting bush!” said Jasper.
“’Tis Injin deviltry, boy; but christian honesty shall sarcumvent their arts.”
As the man slowly approached, the observers began to doubt the accuracy of their first impressions, and it was only when two thirds of the stream was passed, that the truth was really known.
“The Big Sarpent, as I live!” exclaimed Pathfinder, looking at his companion, and laughing until the tears came into his eyes, with pure delight at the success of the artifice. “He has tied bushes to his head, so as to hide it, put the horn on top, lashed the rifle to that bit of log he is pushing afore him, and has come over to join his friends. Ah’s! me. The times, and times, that he and I have cut such pranks, right in the teeth of Mingos raging for our blood, in the great thoroughfare round and about Ty!”
“It may not be the Serpent, after all, Pathfinder—I can see no feature that I remember.”
“Featur’! Who looks for featur’s in an Injin?—No—no— boy; ’tis the paint that speaks, and none but a Delaware would wear that paint. Them are his colours, Jasper, just as your craft on the lake wears St. George’s Cross, and the Frenchers set their table cloths to fluttering in the wind, with all the stains of fish bones and venison steaks upon them. Now, you see the eye, lad, and it is the eye of a chief. But, Eau douce, fierce as it is, in battle, and glaring as it looks from among the leaves—” here the Pathfinder laid his finger lightly but impressively on his companion’s arm—“I have seen it shed tears like rain. There is a soul and a heart, under that red skin, rely on it,
although they are a soul and a heart with gifts different from our own.”
“No one, who is acquainted with the chief, ever doubted that.”
“I know it,” returned the other proudly, “for I have consorted with him in sorrow and in joy; in one I have found him a man, however stricken; in the other a chief who knows that the women of his tribe are the most seemly in light merriment. But, hist! It is too much like the people of the settlements to pour soft speeches into another’s ear, and the Sarpent has keen senses. He knows I love him, and that I speak well of him behind his back, but a Delaware has modesty in his inmost natur’, though he will brag like a sinner when tied to a stake.”
The Serpent now reached the shore, directly in the front of his two comrades, with whose precise position he must have been acquainted before leaving the eastern side of the river, and rising from the water he shook himself like a dog, and made the usual exclamation—
“Hugh!”
Chapter VI
“These, as they change, Almighty Father, these
Are but the varied God.”
—Thomson, “A Hymn on the Seasons,” ll. 1–2.
* * *
AS THE CHIEF LANDED he was met by the Pathfinder, who addressed him in the language of the warrior’s people.
“Was it well done, Chingachgook,” he said reproachfully, “to ambush a dozen Mingos, alone! Killdeer seldom fails me, it is true, but the Oswego makes a distant mark, and that miscreant showed little more than his head and shoulders above the bushes, and an onpractysed hand and eye might have failed. You should have thought of this, chief; you should have thought of this!”
“The Great Serpent is a Mohican warrior—he sees only his enemies, when he is on the war-path, and his fathers have struck the Mingos from behind, since the waters began to run!”
“I know your gifts—I know your gifts, and respect them, too. No man shall hear me complain that a red skin obsarved red skin natur’, but prudence as much becomes a warriour as valour; and had not the Iroquois devils been looking after their friends who were in the water, a hot trail they would have made of yourn!”
The Leatherstocking Tales II Page 9
